When doctors won't tell . . .
Of all the online nutritional information, nutritional facts, medical and
dietary sites there are to choose from, in an article entitled "How
to ease the pain" The Sunday Times magazine,
Culture, published a list of just five websites it
considered reliable and informative.This site was one of that five.

CONDITIONS
AND DISEASES PREVENTED AND HELPED BY A LOW-CARB, HIGH-FAT DIET

"NH&WL may be the best non-technical book on diet ever
written"
Joel Kauffman, PhD, Professor Emeritus, University of the Sciences,
Philadelphia, PA

Do you have to be mental to be a vegetarian?

Although many studies have been conducted about the association between a
vegetarian diet and physical health, very little work has been done on the
associations between a vegetarian diet and mental health. And as more people
are persuaded that a vegetarian diet is a healthy diet, it is essential that
they are made aware of the possible adverse effects of such a diet.

In 2008, a study was published which showed that adopting a vegetarian
lifestyle could lead to a significant amount of brain shrinkage, and that the
more extreme the diet (vegan) caused the most extreme brain loss.[1] I reported
this at Vegetarians have smaller
brains

This latest study adds to previous evidence that concerns about the
healthiness of vegetarianism are well-founded and need to be taken very
seriously.

Background

A small but increasing number of people - now a considerable minority of
populations in Western - countries are choosing to restrict meat in their diets
or cut it out altogether for various reasons.

During the past decades, increasing knowledge has emerged about the effects
of vegetarian diet on nutritional status and physical health. Taken as a whole,
studies have shown that vegetarians are in good physical health compared with
national averages and as healthy as non-vegetarians with a comparable
background and lifestyle.

Many different processes could, in principle, produce differences between
vegetarians and meat eaters in rates of mental disorders. On a biological
level, nutrition status resulting differences in nutrient intakes from a
vegetarian diet may affect neuronal function and synaptic plasticity, which in
turn influences brain processes relevant for onset and maintenance of mental
disorders [3,4]. For example, there is strong evidence that long-chain n-3
fatty acids causally affect risk for major depressive disorders [5,6]. Also low
vitamin B12 levels appear to be causally linked, not only to brain shrinkage,
but also to major depressive disorders. Studies have reported that vegetarians
show lower tissue concentrations of long-chain n-3 fatty acids [7,8] and
vitamin B12 [9,10] which may elevate the risk for major depressive disorder.

Besides differences in nutrition status, vegetarians and non-vegetarians
differ in a number of psychological and socio-demographic characteristics that
may influence their risk for mental disorders. Vegetarians are predominantly
female [11], are more likely to live in urban areas and to be single [12]. All
these factors are correlates of the presence of mental disorders [13].
Moreover, vegetarians tend to be more aware of the factors influencing their
dietary intake and of the importance of a healthy lifestyle in general, they
tend to define themselves negatively by emphasizing what they do not do; they
tend to stress their dissimilarity from others and thereby accentuate their
differences from the general society [14]. Thus, some psychological and
socio-demographic characteristics of vegetarians, such as negative
self-definition and dysfunctional eating attitudes, could have detrimental
effects on mental health.

To be fair, any associations that may be found between vegetarian diet and
mental disorders could be attributable to several possible causal mechanisms:.
For example:

the biological effects of diet have an influence on brain processes that
increases the chance for the onset of mental disorders, in which case it
could be expected that adopting a vegetarian diet would precede the onset
of mental disorders;

relatively stable psychological characteristics influence the probability
of choosing a vegetarian diet pattern, and developing a mental disorder
occurs independently, in which case the adoption of the diet and the onset
of a mental disorder would be unrelated;

developing a mental disorder increases the likelihood of choosing a
vegetarian diet, in which case the onset of the mental disorder would
precede the vegetarian diet.

Although published findings on that type of relationship are missing, it is
conceivable that individuals with mental disorders are more aware of suffering
of animals or may show more health-oriented behaviours (e.g. adopting a
vegetarian diet) in order to positively influence the course of their mental
disorder.

Rates of mental disorders in vegetarians

Shown in the figures below are the 1-month, 12-month and lifetime prevalence
rates of mental disorders in participants who were completely vegetarian,
predominantly vegetarian, and in non-vegetarian matched samples. As you will
see, the 12-month and lifetime prevalence rates of depressive disorders were
nearly 15 % higher in the completely vegetarian group compared to the
non-vegetarians. As could be expected, prevalence rates of individuals with a
predominantly vegetarian diet were somewhere in between the other two.

Kinds of food eaten by participants with and without mental disorders

Consumption of food products by individuals with and without mental
disorders showed a very consistent pattern: individuals suffering from a
depressive, anxiety, or eating disorder as well as from a somatoform disorder
and syndrome consumed less meat. This pattern emerged for 1-month, 12-month as
well as lifetime prevalence rates. Analysis in a subsample of non-vegetarians
also consistently showed that people suffering from a mental disorder also ate less
meat than people without a mental disorder.

Conclusions

On the whole, the results of this study strongly corroborate the past
findings in smaller samples of adolescents and young adults, which have
demonstrated that in contrast to physical health, a vegetarian diet is not
associated with better mental health. Whether compared with a control group of
non-vegetarians matched for important socio-demographic characteristics, or
with non-vegetarians in general, vegetarians show elevated prevalence rates of
diverse mental disorders.

The authors say that: “Importantly, we found no evidence for a causal
role of vegetarian diet in the etiology of mental disorders. Rather, our
results are more consistent with the view that the experience of a mental
disorder increases the probability of choosing a vegetarian diet, or that
psychological factors influence both the probability of choosing a vegetarian
diet and the probability of developing a mental disorder.”

Either way, studies like this and many others demonstrate clearly that
vegetarianism may have some serious consequenses affecting the brain.

Related Articles

Vegetarians have smaller brains
An interesting study was published in 2009. In confirming earlier research, it showed conclusively that people who cut down on eating foods of animal origin — and particularly vegans who cut it out altogether — suffer quite a large degree of brain shrinkage.

Disclaimer: Second Opinions is the website of Barry Groves PhD, offering online nutritional facts and online nutritional information. This website should be used to support rather than replace medical advice advocated by physicians.sitemap